Pirates may be in a better position this offseason than the Brewers were last offseason

*This is part two of the previous post. This is the other side of the argument. 

No moves last offseason have the changed the fortunes for a team this season more than the Brewers’ acquisitions of Christian Yelich and Lorenzo Cain. Yelich is the clear front runner to win the MVP in the National League and Cain was also in that race for three quarters of the season before his own teammate Yelich started to run away with it. They combined for a whopping 13.3 WAR (wins above replacement) this season. 

The Brewers, thanks to this, went from a middling team in 2017 to a division champ and a team that played in the NLCS. These moves not only changed the landscape of the league a bit, but it also provided a new blueprint for how to compete and succeed as a small market team (no market in baseball is smaller than Milwaukee) in the league. 

And I think the Pirates have already begun emulating it a bit.

It is very common in sports leagues for teams in similar situations to copycat each other a bit but do it their own way. The Pirates appear to be doing this here. But, they aren’t copying it move for move. In fact, I think there is at least potential that the Pirates can end up doing it better with how they have begun their version of the process.

While the Brewers did a majority of their work in the offseason, adding Lorenzo Cain and Christian Yelich (and $20 million) to their payroll. The Pirates, however, did a lot of work at the trade deadline by adding Archer and Kela (who will combined to make about $10 million in 2019 and not probably not even $15 million combined in 2020). While them being pitchers means they won’t rack up the same WAR combined as Yelich and Cain, the fact they are both very productive players in their own right at half the cost of Cain and Yelich is massive. A full season of them probably gets the Pirates a fair bit of extra wins. 

The Brewers began the offseason prior to this season with about a $60-65 million payroll, depending on what you look at. Then they added Cain and Yelich and it bloated all the way to around $80-85 million. The Pirates this offseason will begin with a payroll around $70-75 million before any moves are made. If they even expand payroll to $90-95 million, they are looking at around the same amount of money to spend as the Brewers did on Cain and Yelich. And keep in mind that the Pirates already added two significant pieces in Archer and Kela. This puts the Pirates ahead of the game in relation to where the Brewers were entering last offseason as they have both the two major additions already and still more money to spend. 

It is unrealistic to think the Pirates, or any team, can get 13.3 WAR from two offseason acquisitions while only spending $20 million on those players. What Cain and Yelich have meant to the Brewers in that way has been insane. However, knowing that the Pirates have already been able to add some wins with Archer and Kela before making any offseason moves and they still have money to spend similar to what Cain and Yelich made this past season. If they can add two pieces even close to that production to go with Archer and Kela, they certainly could make a jump in 2019 similar to that of the Brewers this year, or maybe even better.